Astrid
I woke up disoriented, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, my heart already racing before I remembered where I was.
Moonshade. The dorm. Ivy snoring softly two feet away.
For one blissful second, none of it had happened. Then it all came rushing back at once, the fire, the note, the crushed hair clip in his fist, and I had to sit up and press the heels of my hands against my eyes until the room stopped tilting.
Ivy was already awake, sitting cross legged on her bed with her phone in hand, scrolling through something with the kind of focus most people reserved for emergencies.
"History first," she announced without looking up. "Then combat theory, then lunch. I already memorized the whole schedule, don’t worry, I’ve got you."
I dug through my satchel out of habit, searching for a phone that didn’t exist.
"Where’s yours?" Ivy asked, glancing over.
I hesitated. "I don’t have one."
She blinked, surprised, but she didn’t push. Instead she smiled and tossed her phone onto the bed like the matter was already settled.
"Lucky for you, you’ve got me. I’ll keep you updated until you get one."
I mumbled a thank you and let it go, grateful she hadn’t asked why a scholarship student showed up to the most prestigious academy in the kingdom with nothing but a satchel and a stranger’s name.
The hallways were already packed by the time we left the dorm, students moving in loud, overlapping streams toward their first classes. I felt the whispers before I heard them.
"That’s her."
"The scholarship girl."
"She actually insulted the Ashwood twins."
"She’s either fearless or incredibly stupid."
A few voices carried something closer to admiration. "I wish I had that kind of confidence." "Did you see Xander laughing?" I kept my eyes forward and my pace steady, the same way I used to walk past men leaving my mother’s room, like nothing anyone said could touch me.
A pair of girls openly stared as I passed. Ivy rounded on them before I could stop her.
"Mind your own business."
One of them raised an eyebrow. "Touchy."
I bumped Ivy’s shoulder gently as we kept walking. "It’s okay."
"No, it isn’t."
"I’ve been called worse."
Ivy went quiet after that, and I could feel her glancing at me sideways, like she was recalculating something. I didn’t explain. There wasn’t a version of the truth I could give her that wouldn’t lead somewhere I couldn’t afford to go.
History was held in a grand room with high windows and rows of desks, the kind of room that made it very clear this school had never once worried about money. Students settled in fast, notebooks out, pens uncapped, the whispers finally dying down.
I reached into my bag and found nothing.
No notebook. No pen. I’d left my old life with barely more than the clothes on my back, and it hadn’t occurred to me until this exact moment that surviving the academy required supplies I didn’t have.
Ivy slid a pink notebook and a matching pen across the desk without a word.
"You can borrow these."
"Thanks," I said, meaning it more than the word could carry.
She beamed like I’d handed her a compliment instead of the other way around.
The professor introduced himself and launched straight into the lesson, something about the reign of King Alaric and the treaties that had united the northern packs generations ago. I found myself leaning forward despite everything, the same way I always had whenever a topic actually interested me. History had been one of the only things my mother let me study freely, back when there’d been time for things like that.
"Can anyone tell me," the professor asked, pacing at the front of the room, "why King Alaric refused to annex the Eastern Packs after the Winter War?"
Silence.
A few students glanced at their notes. Nobody raised a hand, even though I could tell by their faces that some of them knew.
I raised mine before I could think better of it.
The professor nodded at me.
"Because military victory wouldn’t have guaranteed lasting peace," I said. "The Eastern Packs would have rebelled under forced rule eventually, no matter how strong his army was. A trade alliance and a mutual defense pact gave him stability without endless conflict, and it strengthened the kingdom economically for decades after."
The room went quiet in a different way this time.
The professor’s face broke into a genuine smile. "Excellent. That’s exactly the answer I was looking for."
A few students clapped. Then more joined in, and I felt my face heat up under the sudden attention, wishing I could sink straight through the floor.
Ivy leaned over, grinning. "You’re so cool."
I laughed under my breath, embarrassed, and looked up just as the sound faded.
Reed Ashwood was standing near the front of the room.
He must have come in to deliver some kind of council announcement, because a folder was tucked under one arm, but he wasn’t looking at the professor. He was looking at me. Not with the cold amusement I’d expected after yesterday. Something closer to curiosity, like I was a puzzle he hadn’t decided whether to bother solving.
I rolled my eyes and looked away first.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I could feel his attention lingering a beat longer than it should have, and it made something uncomfortable twist low in my stomach.
The bell rang and the room dissolved into motion, chairs scraping, bags zipping shut, voices rising back to their normal volume. The whispers had changed since this morning, I noticed, less mocking.
"Maybe she really earned that scholarship."
"She’s smarter than I thought."
"Still can’t believe she insulted the princes, though."
Ivy grinned as we packed up. "See? First day of classes and you’re already impressing everyone."
"I’d rather they forgot I existed," I muttered, and meant every word of it.
The walk to lunch should have been the easy part. The hallways were crowded but cheerful, students laughing and shoving past each other on their way to the cafeteria, and for a few minutes I let myself believe the worst of the day might already be behind me.
Then I turned a corner too fast.
I collided with someone hard enough to knock the books clean out of my arms, pages fluttering across the floor.
"I’m so sorry," I said immediately, already dropping to my knees to gather them.
A pair of polished shoes stepped into view. A manicured hand reached down and picked up one of my books before I could, holding it just out of reach like she was inspecting something distasteful.
"I see you’ve forgotten your place," a voice said, calm and disdainful, each word sharpened to a point.
I looked up.
Selene stood over me, flanked by two other girls whose expressions ranged from bored to openly delighted at whatever was about to happen. Selene’s smile was beautiful, and effortless.
But it didn’t come anywhere near her eyes.